The ex-noise producers and current masters of silence return with their brand new album Shadows Of The Sun, showing that Metal is not only a matter of heaviness and/or brutality, but it can also be well hidden under peaceful and smooth melodies. Just like the nine (including the cover) incredibly beautiful songs that are featured in this magnificent piece of work. Please allow me to introduce you to both your worst nightmare and your most beautiful dream...

The Norwegian sound tamers were formerly a Black Metal band, that managed to attract the attention of the underground scene with releases like the 1993 demo Vargnatt and the incredible debut album Bergtatt (1994). Bergtatt showed many signs that the band wanted to explore new musical paths and experiment on the more mysterious side of music. The experimentation and the various line up changes the band had to go through make ULVER the force they are today.

The band's sound has evolved a lot the last years, since the ex black metallers have become an experimental Ambient/Trip Hop/Avant Garde outfit that has forgotten the meaning of the word boundaries. The band's brand new album Shadows Of The Sun, which is being released by Rygg's own label Jester Records, is a bit different from the Ambient/Trip Hop electronic experimentations ULVER tried in Perdition City, as well as different from the Themes From William Blake's The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell release, where Rygg's vocals were much deeper and poetic. Shadows Of The Sun is the most melancholic and depressive work the band has produced until now, since the keys and the suffocating atmosphere they create drag you into a never ending nightmare of fear and uncertainty about... everything.

Shadows Of The Sun is one of the few albums that will definitely make you wonder about things that surround you, even about your own existence! The Norwegian teachers of silence have definitely the talent, the abilities and the guts to make a more philosophical approach on music and challenge you to think. The band has also avoided using only samples, so several musicians were called to help the band with the recordings. String quartets, trumpets, violins, guitars, cellos, violas and many classic instruments have taken the album's electro feeling and made it a more acoustic kind of work.

Many of you will be wondering right now... Why am I saying all these words about ULVER, a band that has forgotten about its Black metal past and has turned to other kinds of music? No one said that the current state of the wolves has anything to do with the Metal scene. The only thing that connects with Metal is their past. The above words were written for some specific listeners that know what ULVER are able to deliver. As for the rating, I don't know if I it would be right to put this band under a number. Let's not forget that ULVER's music is rated by feelings, not numbers...